New Delhi: Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai on Monday likened a former Pakistani law officer, who was sacked for cleaning shoes at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, to a "modern day Maulana Abul Kalam Azad".

Delivering the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Memorial Lecture, Karzai recalled an elderly school headmaster Ibrahim, who spent a fortnight with him after he was sworn in as President, and came with a message to make efforts to keep Hindus back in Afghanistan.

"I have nothing to ask for myself but a request to hold Hindus back in Afghanistan... He was the Maulana in the form of an aam aadmi (common man)," Karzai said at the lecture organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).

Similarly, he recalled the instance of the then Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan Muhammad Khurshid who had cleaned the shoes of devotees visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Khurshid, who had served the devotees in gurdwaras as a form of 'penance' for the crimes committed by the Taliban militia against minorities, was sacked as law officer for reportedly giving Pakistan a 'bad image' by cleaning shoes and sweeping the floor while on an official visit to India.